The Way of the Future: Splintered Souls, Broken Spirits
by Stormeborn
Summary: My take on the Harry has a twin cliche. First Fanfic. First year. Follow the Potter twins as they embark on a journey full of adventure and mayhem. Watch as they make friends and enemies, fight for their lives and their sanity, all the while trying not to lose each other along the way.
1. Chapter 1

A/N This is my first fanfiction. I have been a long time reader though and I have a few original fictions under my belt. I thought I would start with something everyone knows - the Harry has a twin plot. Hopefully my story differs enough from all the others to make it interesting, but that is something you will only find out if you read it.

Enjoy!

Storme

Disclaimer - Anything you recognise does not belong to me.

The Way of the Future: Splintered Souls, Broken Spirits

Chapter 1

'Get up you lazy brats!' A shrill voice sounded breaking the tranquil morning air, its owner banging her hand on the door as she did so. Harry jerked awake and sat up, knocking his head on the bottom of the staircase as he did so. The thump shook the crooked roof and coated everything with a light cover of dust and spider webs. He grumbled quietly to himself and rubbed his head with one hand and shook his sister with the other. 'What did you say?' the female screeched, causing the girl occupying the same bed as her brother to mumble 'nothing Aunt Petunia.'

Aunt Petunia huffed on the other side of the door, 'you two had better not ruin Dudder's special day with your freakishness.' With that she walked away, heading towards the kitchen to begin preparing the mornings meal, leaving the two small children to scramble about, getting in each other's way as they tried to get dressed and get out the door. They were both used to the cramped space though, having shared the same bed for as long as they could both remember.

Finally, both Harry and his sister Lucia managed to finish dressing and leave the cupboard they called home, but not after a scuffle over who got to wear the better pair of socks that day. Harry won that argument by hiding half of the pair in his worn-out pillowcase until Lucia gave in. It didn't take long; Lucia didn't have the same patience as her brother, when it came to that kind of thing. 'Trivial stuff isn't worth it', she had said to him, numerous times, 'leave your patience for the stuff that matters'. Her brother had come back with 'everything matters, whether you think so or not'.

The black-haired boy exited the cupboard first, leaving his sister to brush her hair with an old comb that was missing half its teeth. She was the only one that tried to use it, both her and her brother had given up trying to tame his messy locks, no matter what they did, his hair just wouldn't lie flat. Both children looked as similar as brother and sister could, they both had knobbly knees and thin faces. Apart from their gender the only other differences they had were the colour of their hair and eyes. Harry had black hair and bright green eyes behind his glasses while Lucia had red hair and sparkling blue eyes. Even though they looked alike, they were often mistaken as cousins because of their colouring but that was something they were quick to correct, neither wanted to give up the only person each considered actual family.

It only took her about a minute to roughly pull the comb through her mid-length auburn hair but that was all the delay her aunt would tolerate and before long the piercing voice of Aunt Petunia could be heard once more urging her to hurry up or the bacon would burn. Lucia sighed quietly and rolled her eyes as she left the cupboard and made her way to the kitchen. Halfway up the hallway she was shoved aside into the wall as her cousin pushed past making a beeline for the kitchen. He stopped suddenly, turning around with a smirk on his face and a gleam in his eye. He crouched down and held his hand out as if to offer help to the girl but at the last minute he twisted his wrist and cruelly tugged on the hair that had covered Lucia's face when she fell.

Just as quick as he stopped, the large boy, Dudley, stood up and made his way into the kitchen loudly complaining that he was hungry and why wasn't breakfast ready yet? He was the same age as the twins but was considerably larger than both of them put together. That wasn't hard though, considering he the amount he ate each day most likely totalled the weight of his cousins.

The kitchen table was covered with presents and Dudley's greedy eyes quickly took that in while his chubby hands reached for the first one and started to rip it open. Lucia had followed her obese cousin into the room, his mass hiding her from view momentarily from the other occupants. She quickly made her way over to her brother and took the tongs of him, taking charge of the bacon cooking on the stovetop.

As she passed her brother she whispered quietly into his ear, 'watch your sleeve.' Harry looked down and saw that his sleeve was very close to the hot plate, millimetres away from catching fire. He stooped what he was doing with the eggs and rolled his sleeve up out of the way. He shot a grateful glance at his sister, knowing that if his shirt had caught on fire he would have been in a lot of trouble. Both his aunt and uncle would have yelled at him about how ungrateful he was; ruining perfectly good clothes like that. It didn't matter that they were Dudley's hand-me-down's and were 4 sizes too big. Lucia was a little luckier in that respect, her clothes were still used however they had previously belonged to Aunt Petunia and even she had to admit that there would be suspicions from the general public if she hadn't reluctantly taken them in to fit her niece.

'Where is my special guy?' the only other male, Uncle Vernon, in the house questioned as he made his way into the kitchen with the newspaper tucked under one arm. He ruffled his son's blonde hair as he rounded the table and took his seat at the head.

'Dad, when is Piers coming?' Dudley managed to say through a mouthful of bacon and grease.

'He will be here in about an hour, son.'

Piers was a part of Dudley's gang at school. When they decided to beat someone up he was usually the one that held the hands behind the back of the unlucky guy they had managed to catch that day. Needless to say Dudley's favourite person to beat up was his own cousin, Harry. Fortunately for the smaller boy, Dudley wasn't a very fast runner and Harry quite frequently succeeded in escaping. When that happened Dudley's second thought was to do the same thing to Lucia. In the time it took Dudley to make that decision though Lucia had, more often than not, made herself scarce and hidden from the bully and his gang.

Regrettably, though there was nowhere to hide in their own house and Dudley knew that his cousins had to come home sometime. It was those times, when both Harry and Lucia had evaded Dudley during the day, coming home just after dark was the only option they had, that was when it hurt the most. Dudley would take his frustrations out on both twins, locking them in the basement when he would finish. It was cold and dark and damp down there and spending the night bruised and bloody usually led to one or both of the twins becoming sick and not healing properly.

The phone rang halfway through breakfast and Aunt Petunia left to answer it. In the time she was gone Dudley finished his bacon and eggs and started counting his presents. Harry noticed quickly how much trouble his cousin was having and nudged his sister in the side to grab her attention. When she looked up, the look of confusion on her face rapidly changed to amusement and they both sat there trying very hard to keep the smiles of their faces and their laughter silent.

That plan blew up in the twins faces when Harry muttered, 'who knew pigs could count?'

Lucia burst out laughing, unable to hold it in after that, her brother following shortly after. Uncle Vernon's face purpled as he stared at the two laughing their heads off. 'What are you laughing at, Boy?'

Just as Harry calmed down enough to answer, Aunt Petunia bustled back into the kitchen, her brow furrowed and lips tightly pressed together. 'Mrs Figg can't take them. She broke her leg.'

Vernon's head snapped up from his breakfast plate. 'What?'

'What do we do now?' Harry and Lucia looked at each other in anticipation. Whatever was about to happen was something out of the normal for the pair, something different and that would hopefully mean something good. Usually on Dudley's birthday or when the Dursley's went away on holiday, they left Harry and Lucia with old Mrs Figg, who lived just down the street.

Mrs Figg was a nice enough lady but Harry hated going to her house, everything was old and smelled funny and Lucia spent most of her time there sneezing. Harry believed that it was the cats that made her do so. Lucia was adamant that is was the old lady herself that she was allergic to. Nevertheless, both Harry and Lucia would be miserable by the time they were allowed to go back to Number 4 Privet Drive.

'You could just leave us here,' Harry piped up hopefully.

'We could phone Marge,' Vernon stated, completely ignoring Harry. The boy glanced at his sister as if to say 'Well what do you expect? It's not as if they have listened to either of us before.'

'She hates them, Vernon, and Yvonne is on holiday so she can't take them either.'

'We may have to take them with us.'

That statement had some mixed reactions in the kitchen of Number 4 Privet Drive. Dudley's mouth dropped in horror, showing a mouthful of half-eaten food to the rest of the house hold. Vernon's face once again turned a mottled shade of red and purple. Lucia stared at her Aunt in disbelief, shocked that they would even think of doing something that would benefit her brother and herself. Harry straightened almost imperceptibly in his chair, his vibrant green eyes shining as he waited for an answer that he hoped would be positive.

His hopes were dashed however when Vernon calmly said 'The car's brand new, I'm not having them sit in it. Besides they won't fit in the back seat with Piers and Dudley. The car only fits three in the back and I'll be damned if I break the law for those freaks.'

After a little more discussion, Vernon and Petunia finally decided to leave Harry and Lucia behind, albeit locked outside the house and unable to get back in until they had returned from the zoo. Dudley grinned in pleasure and whooped out loud when he heard the verdict, then poked his tongue out at his cousins.

Neither twin was very surprised when they were told they were being left behind again. It was a regular occurrence when it came to the decisions of their extended family. Most often they were only given a momentary thought which usually consisted of the phrase 'Be quiet, stay out of sight and for your own sake, don't do anything freaky!'

Not long after breakfast was finished and the twins had cleared away everything that was used in the kitchen, Dudley's friend Piers showed up with his mother. Shortly after that Piers' mother left and the two boys rounded on their smaller counterparts as the two were making their way to the cupboard under the stairs.

'Poor freaks, bet you thought you were going to get to come with us, didn't you?' mocked Dudley.

Harry didn't say anything in response, shrinking a little, as if trying to escape notice. He had no such luck however and Dudley didn't respond well to being ignored. His already meaty fist slammed into Harry's stomach, doubling him over. 'Answer him, freak.' Piers sneered, grabbing a hold of Lucia's arm so she couldn't get away. She tried anyway, twisting in his grip, but that only succeeded in Piers gripping tighter.

Harry tried to gasp out an answer, failing to do anything more than whisper a strained 'Yes.' Dudley leaned forward to catch the answer and when he heard Harry, the smile on his face patronising.

'Aww, the little baby wanted to go home to his mummy, the gorilla. Pity your real mum's dead, huh?'

'Don't you talk about our mum!' Lucia cried out. Harry was still trying to catch his breath after Dudley's punch winded him. Dudley whipped around to face the girl still trying to get her arm out of Piers' clutch. 'Or what?' he stated coldly, 'There's nothing you can do to me without getting into trouble. Neither of you are wanted here, you are nothing but useless freaks, so why don't you do us a favour and not come back tonight!' Dudley growled in Lucia's face.

Lucia was taken aback. Sure, her cousin was mean and beat them up but he had never told them that they should leave. Both Lucia and Harry were told frequently that they were useless or good-for –nothing, years of that type of treatment had hardened both to the insults coming from their family.

With that final statement, Dudley pulled Lucia's hair for the second time that day, a bit more severely than the first time. He punched Harry one more time, winding him further and then left the house with Piers to get into the car.

Lucia knelt to help her brother Harry up. Just as she had gotten him upright, their Aunt and Uncle came through from the back of the house. 'Why haven't you two left yet?' Vernon snapped at them, 'You're blocking the hallway, get a move on!' He barged past them roughly, followed by Petunia, leaving the two to walk unsteadily out the front door, with Lucia trying not to trip her brother up by getting tangled in his feet. As soon as they had crossed the threshold of the house Vernon slammed the door behind them, locking it.

The twins moved to the side of the driveway and watch as their family piled into the car without them. Vernon wound down the window and shouted out to them 'If we come back and the street is in shambles, the pair of you won't see the light of day for a month!'

He wound the window up and reversed the car out of the driveway, leaving the two pre-teens standing there, staring at the back of the car as it pulled away, Piers and Dudley in the back seat pulling faces at them. As soon as the car turned the corner and disappeared out of sight Harry turned to his sister and said 'So what do you propose we do now?'


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Harry and Lucia made their way down the street to the little park that sat on the corner. Harry was walking stiffly holding his stomach. He suspected that his ribs had been bruised or broken; he knew for sure it hurt all the same.

The park was empty when they got there; it was too early in the morning for any of the children in the neighbourhood to be outside. They would come out later on in the afternoon, after lunch. Lucia sat down on the swing and started to push herself back and forth slightly scuffing the bottom of her shoe on the mulch underneath. Harry laid down on the slide, his feet dangling off the end.

Both children were silent for a while, too wrapped up in their own thoughts to worry about each other. Both were thinking about their so-called family and how once again they were pushed aside and left behind. Harry winced as he used his abused stomach muscles to pull himself up.

'I'm tired of this, Luce.' Harry sighed, 'Why does this happen all the time?'

'I don't know, Harry, maybe they're right? Maybe we are freaks?' came the soft reply.

'Lucy, don't think like that, it's not our fault they're mean and horrible to us. We haven't done anything wrong.' Harry frowned at his sister. Usually she was the one that would cheer him up when he was feeling down, now that they both were feeling down, Harry didn't know what to do.

'Well, what about what Dudley said? We could do that.' Lucia was looking at Harry now with determination, her eyes alight with purpose. 'Why don't we just leave and not come back? We could go to London and find somewhere there to live.'

'Luce, how would we do that? We would have to walk there and that would take hours! What about food, and clothes, and school, and..' Harry trailed off, thinking of the ways that his sister's idea could go wrong; a small part of his brain however was persistently saying otherwise and slowly but surely began to win the fight.

'I don't know Harry but anything's better than staying here. It has to be! If we leave now we could get there by dark. Who knows, maybe there will be someone who will take pity on a couple of 8 year olds and feed us.'

'I don't know about this, Luce, but I agree, we can't stay here,' Harry stood up. 'We better get started then if we are going to make it by nightfall.' Lucia hopped off the swing and the twins made their way out of the playground.

Hours later the two foot-weary children finally made it to London. It had been a very long, hot walk and both Harry and his sister were tired, sweaty and longing for their little cot under the stairs, if only for the small comfort and privacy it provided. Nevertheless, both were still happy that they had finally gotten out from under the thumb of their abusive family. They had made it into Central London an hour or so after dark so it was still fairly busy with most people on the street either heading to or coming home after dinner. Harry and Lucia walked along quietly soaking in the surroundings, staring at the nightlife rushing around them.

There was so much going on around them that Harry didn't notice the man in front of him until he ran into him. He fell heavily to the ground as the man turned around. The man had light brown hair and brown eyes. He was on his way to dinner with his girlfriend, hopefully going to get an answer to his proposal that night. He took in the scruffy boy on the ground and the equally dishevelled girl who looked like she wanted to apologise to him but was hovering between doing so and bending down to help the boy up.

'Oi! Watch what you're doing!' the man barked. He was patting down his pockets to make sure that his precious ring was still there. When he felt the small box still in his pocket he relaxed visibly and turned to walk away, muttering under his breath. 'No-good rotten kids,' was all Lucia heard before he vanished into the throng of people crossing the road.

'Come on Harry, let's find somewhere for the night.' Lucia watched as her brother got up from the ground. The twins wandered around a little more getting a feel for the place and searching for somewhere out of the way they could bunk down in for the night.

'This is only temporary, Luce, until we find something better and more permanent,' Harry said to his sister and they made their way down a side alley. 'What, you mean like an abandoned building or something?' Lucia grinned at her brother. Both children were keeping their spirits high, and not just for the sake of the other. 'Look, Harry, what about there?'

There was a small alcove, almost hidden from view of to the left of the alley. As the two made their way over, they could both see that it was almost blocked off at the entrance and to get through they had to wriggle their way amidst a pile of debris and general rubbish that had collected up. Lucia went first, closely followed by her brother.

After a few minutes of grunting, shoving and muttered curses as Harry and Lucia got their clothes, hair and skin caught of various bits, the two young children managed to squeeze their way through into a much larger space. It smelt a little but neither child cared about that. The space was an enclosed dead end, littered with trash, however right at the back, there was a mattress and some tattered blankets. It looked like it had been lived in some time ago, forgotten now by the various homeless and street kids living in and around the area. There was an overhang that covered about half of the room in front of them from the elements, and a street light attached to the roof that gave everything an amber hue. The light on the overhang and the sides of the buildings coupled with the moon gave Harry and Lucia enough light to see what they had discovered.

Harry and Lucia beamed at each other, both clearly pleased with what they had found. It was better than what they had ever imagined they would find on such short notice. 'This is perfect, Harry, we could stay here for ages.' Lucia stated as she bounded forward, inspecting what may become their new home. Harry started moving as well, examining the walls that surrounded the place. 'Yeah, Lucy, it looks good. Do you want to see if you can find something to eat or do you want me to? You could stay here and see what you can do about this mess.' Harry questioned his sister, waving his hand in a gesture that encompassed everything in front of him.

'That sound like a good idea, Harry. Don't be gone long or I'll have to come looking for you.' She answered back. Harry made his way back through the opening and back out onto the street. It was almost empty now, which surprised Harry. It seemed that they had taken longer than he thought in finding a place to sleep. Most of the restaurants were closed or closing up, their staff finishing up the last amount of work for the night before going home themselves. Harry meandered through the streets for a while, memorizing his route so he could find his way back. A small pub caught Harry's eye. Unlike the other businesses surrounding it, this one was still open and it seemed like business was thriving. His curiosity roused, Harry quickly made his way over to the door and ducked inside.

The pub was filled with people. All the tables were filled and there were about a dozen or so standing at the bar waiting to be served by the somewhat older man behind the bar and a plump middle-aged woman beside him. There were also a few barmaids skilfully making their way around the floor, serving drinks and food and avoiding the groping of the more intoxicated patrons at the same time.

Harry looked around wondering what he was going to do. He didn't want to resort to stealing so quickly so he racked his brain trying to think of another way he could get some food for him and his sister. He didn't know when he would be able to get more so one of his priorities was to get as much food as he could without being suspicious. Harry knew from experience that shop owners tended to be suspicious when little children came in without an adult supervising them.

While he was thinking, Harry notice that the smell of the pub was different to what he had ever smelt before, he took a deep breath and tried to figure out what his nose detected. He could smell the tangy undertones of the copious amounts of alcohol being passed around and the aroma of meat roasting from the kitchens was tantalising for a small boy who could not remember the last time he had something so delicious. There was something else though, a sharp, bitter, almost metallic smell that Harry was sure he could taste in the back of his mouth. It hung over everything in the small tavern, rendering everything Harry noticed seem like it was something more, even the most common of items gave the impression of hiding something untold.

While he was wondering what he could do, the door to the pub opened giving Harry a very sudden reminder that he was standing in the way. He quickly moved off to the side as yet more people entered the already crowded bar. As he did so, another barmaid bustled out of the kitchen, her hand laden with food and drink, but that was not was caught Harry's attention. Sitting on the bench now visible from behind the swinging door was a large steaming pie.

While Harry was out, Lucia made herself busy by cleaning up the small area she and her brother might call home. She worked under the light of the partially full moon and a dingy street lamp attached to the side of one of the buildings, the lamp on the other side looked like it hadn't worked for quite some time. There was a lot of trash and clutter over the ground, mainly empty bottles and cans, and papers. Lucy spent a good while stacking it all to the side and sorting all of it out so she could decide if there was anything worthwhile keeping or not. She did manage to find some blue tarp hidden in a corner so with that and some bits of wood she found also, Lucy managed to rig it up in the far left corner around the mattress to provide some privacy. There was also an old bucket missing its handle which she thought would be perfect to serve as a toilet during the night. Lucia had decided that during the day both her and her older brother would leave their hideaway to do their ablutions; hopefully they would find a place nearby that had public access to toilets, like a park or a mall. She was sure that Harry would agree with her, the one thing neither of them wanted was their residence to smell unpleasant. Already she was beginning to think of this new place as their own, leaning slightly towards calling it a home, Lucy knew that both of them wanted something better but she also knew that to get there they had to start somewhere and the bottom was as good a place as any. As she pottered about she idly thought to herself _'well, there is no place to go but up.'_

At that moment Harry made his reappearance, looking quite pleased with himself. In his hand was a big bag which looked to be relatively heavy and had a couple of bottles poking out the top. He looked around to see what his sister had done in his absence and then grinned at her as she made her way over to him to help unload.

'Wow, Harry! Where did all this food come from?' Lucy exclaimed as she and Harry went through the bag. The two children made short work of separating everything into two separate piles, one of food and the other drinks. Right at the bottom of the bag was the steaming pie that had originally caught Harry's eye.

'Well, I found this pub, you see..' And with that Harry launched into a tale of how he came by the stack of food, how he saw the pie and decided to swipe it and how he was caught by the woman who worked in the kitchen. He told Lucy how the woman, who was named Mabel and ran the pub with her husband Tom, took pity on him and gave him the bag and then struck a deal with him.

Lucy was suspicious immediately, 'What deal did you make Harry?' she queried, distrustful of adults – well anyone really – especially when they wanted something.

'Don't worry Lucy, it's not that bad,' Harry exclaimed, 'Mabel explained to me that she couldn't keep giving me free food all the time so she offered me the chance to work for it.'

Lucia frowned at her brother. 'And what, exactly, is the type of work an 8 year old is supposed to accomplish that a fully grown adult can't?' It was a silly question really; both knew precisely what a child their age could do from their time and experience living with the Dursley's.

Despite knowing this, Harry answered her anyway, 'well, basically, during the day I help around the pub tidying up and preparing for the night ahead and run errands for them when I have to. That's all, honest.' Harry grinned winningly at Lucy. She still looked a little disgruntled and a bit suspicious so Harry continued. 'Mabel also said she would pay me 3 pounds an hour.'

Lucia perked up at that. Money meant they could buy things that Harry's mystery woman couldn't give them, like clothes. 'All right Harry, but be careful, we don't really know them. For all we know they could be axe murderers or something.'

Harry shrugged, more interested in the food between them than his sister's worry. He grunted then mumbled, 'yeah alright, can we eat now?'

Lucia nodded her assent and the two hungry, weary children tucked in to their first meal away from the Dursley's. Harry was sure it was one of the best meals he had ever eaten and when he proclaimed this out loud his sister heartily agreed through a mouthful of food. When they were both finally finished, their stomachs full to bursting for the first time in a long time, they settled down side by side on the mattress, wrapped tight in a cocoon of the ratty blankets and drifted off into sleep with smiles on their faces.


End file.
